2011-05-28

Thomas William McDowall (1845-1936)

This page carries followups to the 1936 obituary of Thomas William McDowall who died at the age of 91. He was the Edinburgh born Medical Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum (later to be known as the more user-friendly St George's Hospital) in Morpeth. In 1908, he treated my great grandmother Margaret Brown, née Gourlay, just before she died there, aged just 45, on the 8th of April.

Margaret Gourlay's GP - one Frederick Riddle Scott - appears to have been rather less long-lived. He referred her to the hospital (on March 20, 1908) with the notes "At times she is quiet and talks sensibly but loses the thread of her story at other times she becomes wildly excited and uses threats. She says someone is continually giving her electric shocks which make her twist about also that bells are being constantly rung in her ears. ...".

According to the 1911 census, he was a young unmarried doctor living with his sister in Cleveland Road, North Shields. But by 1912 he was dead at the age of 34.